Another WEG is done and dusted, and setting all the drama aside, I think we can all agree that we at least got to see some of the best horses in the world doing their thing. That part was awesome.
A couple weeks ago I broke down some stats on the bloodlines and pedigrees of all of the eventing horses – now I’m back with some stats on the top 25 horses from eventing, dressage, and showjumping.
For real though, it’s interesting. I promise.
To start, let’s look at the top 25 (individual placings) dressage horses.
The average age was 12.8 years.
The average blood percentage was 31.5%. There were a couple of Lusitanos at 0% of course, but the lowest blood % on one of the warmbloods was 9%. That’d be your second place horse, Verdades. The highest blood % belonged to the first place horse, Bella Rose, at 49%. How’s that for contrast?
40% were geldings, 44% were stallions, and 16% were mares. However, of the top FIVE horses, 60% were mares.
De Niro had the most offspring in the top 25, as the sire of 3 horses. Diamond Hit was the sire of 2 horses. Krack C was the damsire of 2 horses.
Two horses had a full blood damsire – Bella Rose with an AngloArab damsire, and Mister X with a TB damsire. One other horse in the field had a full AngloArab as the dam’s damsire.
20% had a showjumper within the first 3 generations. The 4th place horse, Cosmo, is by a 1.60m jumper stallion, Van Gogh.
Next – the top 25 individually ranked jumpers.
The average age was 11.6 years.
The average blood percentage was 42%. The lowest clocks in at 29% and the highest is 56%. The top 3 horses were slightly below this average, at 32%, 33%, and 36%.
40% were mares, 24% were stallions, and 36% were geldings. However, yet again, of the top 5 horses, 60% were mares. Also worth noting that the gold medal dressage horse and the gold medal jumper were both chestnut mares.
Lord Pezi was the damsire of two horses, and Diamant de Semilly was the sire of one and damsire of another.
None had a dressage horse within the first 3 generations.
And finally, back to the eventers. We already looked at the whole field in depth, but let’s take a look at how the stats shook out with the top 25.
The average age was 12.5 years.
The average blood percentage was 62%, with the lowest being 37% and the highest being 100%. The top 3 horses were 53%, 69%, and 72%.
16% were mares, 8% were stallions, and 72% were geldings. The top 5 were all geldings.
60% had Selle Francais blood, 26% had Holsteiner blood, and 28% had both. 28% had at least one full Thoroughbred parent.
Jaguar Mail was the sire of 2 horses in the top 25. Three stallions had offspring in the top 25 of both the jumping horses AND the eventers: Diamant de Semilly, Balou du Rouet, and Vigo D’Arsouilles.
Of the DOUBLE CLEAR XC ROUNDS: the average blood percentage of those horses was 66%. And of those double clears, 33% had a full thoroughbred sire. 20% had a full thoroughbred dam. Another 33% were either full French AA or had French AA in fhe first 2 generations.
And my favorite statistic, which has nothing to do with the horses but everything to do with an epic mic drop: ALL 3 INDIVIDUAL GOLD MEDAL WINNERS WERE WOMEN.
breedrideevent.com 
The number of direct Chacco-Blues in jumping was astounding. To the point where there was a Chacco Blue II and and Chacco Balou and my friends wanted to murder me for correcting them.
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Yes, there are a ton of Chacco Blue’s! He’s been used a lot, for a long time, just like DdS and some others. I was kind of surprised that only one made it to the top 25.
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The differences between Verdades and Bella Rose’s movements made it apparently how much the riding and training really matters in the sport. Both are lovely and correct, but Verdades is flashier. Yet Isabel’s training and exacting riding really made the difference in securing that gold medal. She rode her ass off, and the mare just TRIED with all her heart.
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I love this post so much! Thanks for doing the research and sharing!
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Is there anything to say other than “Go Mares!”? I really enjoyed the feeling that the best trained horse/rider combo won the Dressage. The SJ really do jump so differently from our eventers. It is so cool to see.
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way too much math too early in the am there but cool how you are that much a nerd to do that much math 🙂 HA…
Looks like women lead the way 🙂
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Go chestnut mares!!!
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I was hoping someone would find out if there had ever been a female winner of an individual gold medal in eventing. I haven’t followed the Olympics/WEG long enough to know (and haven’t taken the time to look), but offhand I couldn’t think of one. I suspect that wall has fallen hard and there will be more to come. The top level of eventing is no longer dominated by male riders the way it was even a couple of decades ago. And the courses are tougher than ever.
Great stats! Especially to break out the double-clear eventers. 🙂
Fascinating that so many of the top placing horses were mares. So poof to the silly idea some traditionalists expound that mares should only be asked to bear the next generation, and performance horses should be male. Thankfully not every rider agrees! 🙂
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Can you do this with combined driving for me? The nerd in me wants to know, but the lazy side is winning at the moment…
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I can pay in.. Socks?
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Yeah I was going to ask this too!
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I know this is a very basic question but, I would love to learn. What is the definition of “average blood percentage?” Did some googling but did not get a good grasp.
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The blood percentage of a horse is measuring how much thoroughbred, Arabian, or AngloArabian blood a horse has. So a TB would obviously be 100%, something like an Andalusian or a draft horse (or literally any breed that doesn’t contain Tb or Arabian) would be 0%. All modern warmbloods have some percentage of “blood” in their lineage… some have more than others. Blood is considered pretty important to help keep the horses more modern and quicker and more agile. Hence why you tend to see a higher blood percentage in an eventer vs a dressage horse. When I say “average blood percentage”, I mean that I literally took the blood percentage of each horse and calculated an average for the group.
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This is amazing! As a strong TB Advocate and the owner of a half-arab to boot, the information is fantastic!
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How painful was it for you to admit that the chestnut horses did well? Lol
Thanks for the amazing stats!
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